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Niels K. Jerne - Biographical

Niels K.
Jerne, born 23rd December 1911, London

My parents, Hans Jessen Jerne and Else Marie Lindberg, and their
ancestors (back to the seventeenth century and earlier) all lived
on the island Fanø and in a small adjacent area of western
Jutland in Denmark. My family moved to London in 1910, and then
to Holland during the first world war. I received my
Baccalaureate in Rotterdam in 1928.

After two years of studying physics at the University of Leiden, I switched to medicine at the
University of
Copenhagen where I presented my thesis on the avidity of
antibodies in 1951.

My wife Alexandra and I married in 1964, and now live in our
house near Avignon. Further details of my curriculum vitae:

Research worker at the Danish State
Serum Institute (1943-1956)

Research fellow at the California
Institute of Technology, Pasadena (1954-1955)

Head of the Sections of Biological
Standards and of Immunology at the World Health
Organization, Geneva (1956-1962)

Professor of Biophysics at the
University
of Geneva (1960 - 1962)

Professor of Microbiology and Chairman
of the Department, University of Pittsburgh (1962-1966)

Professor of Experimental Therapy at
the Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe-Universität,
Frankfurt, and Director of the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut,
Frankfurt (1966-1969)

Director of the Basel Institute for
Immunology, Basel (1969-1980)

Special Immunology Adviser to the
Director of the Institut Pasteur, Paris (1981-1982)

Member emeritus and Honorary Chairman
of the Advisory Board of the Basel Institute for Immunology
(from 1981)

Member of the WHO Advisory Committee
on Medical Research (1949-1968)

Member of the Advisory Committee on
Medical Research of the Panamerican Health Organization
(1963-1966)

Member of the Expert Advisory Panel of
Immunology of the WHO since 1962

Honorary Member of the
Robert-Koch-Institut, Berlin (1966)

Foreign Honorary Member of the
American
Academy of Arts and Sciences (1967)

Member of the Royal Danish Academy of
Sciences (1969)

Chairman, Council of the European
Molecular Biology Organization (1971-1975)

Gairdner Foundation International
Award, Toronto (1970)

Doctor of Science, h.c., University of
Chicago (1972)

Honorary Member of the American
Association of Immunologists (1973)

Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) (1975)

Waterford Bio-Medical Science Award,
La Jolla (1978)

Doctor of Science, h.c., Columbia
University, New York (1978)

Foreign Member of the American
Philosophical Society (1979)

Doctor of Science, h.c., University of
Copenhagen (1979)

Marcel Benoist Prize, Bern (1979)

Fellow of the Royal Society
(1980)

Doctor of Science, h.c., University of
Basel (1981)

Member of the Académie des
Sciences de l'Institut de France (1981)

Paul Ehrlich Prize, Frankfurt
(1982)

Honorary Member of the British Society
for Immunology (1983)

Doctor of Medicine, h.c., Erasmus
University, Rotterdam (1983)

The work referred to in the citation
for the award of the Nobel Prize is mainly included in the
following papers:

This autobiography/biography was written
at the time of the award and later published in the book series Les
Prix Nobel/Nobel Lectures/The Nobel Prizes. The information is sometimes updated with an addendum submitted
by the Laureate.